The History of Bees

by Maja Lunde

  I had to change trains. First once. Then twice more. The timetable had been torn down, the electronic system had stopped working long ago. I just had to wait, the first time for exactly twenty-three minutes, then fourteen and then twenty-six. I timed it each time.

  After three changes I finally arrived. It felt almost like coming home, at long last the surroundings felt familiar, as if I had been gone for much longer than twenty-four hours. My entire body clamored with hunger, but I didn’t have time to sit down and eat, just shoved down a package of biscuits I had left—yet another package of biscuits—and asked the receptionist where I could find the closest library.

  There was only one. One single open library left in all of Beijing. It was located in Xicheng, near a direct train line from the hotel. I passed the old zoo on my way. The decorations on the entryway were almost eroded away by the wind and weather. The plant life inside was threatening to take over, to burst through the fence. What had happened to all the animals? The species on the verge of extinction? The last koala bear? Perhaps they were walking around loose in the streets now, had found homes in vacated houses. It was a comforting thought, that they could still continue their life here on earth, even though there were so few people left.

  The square in front of the library was deserted. I hurried across it, didn’t have time to be frightened. The entrance door was so heavy I feared it was locked, but when I used all of my strength, I managed to open it.

  The room was enormous, divided into levels, like a stairway. The walls were covered with books, thousands of them. On the floor, lined up in straight rows, were more tables and chairs than I could count. The room was in semidarkness, there was only light from the windows in the ceiling, all of the lights were out, and there wasn’t a soul here, as if the library were actually closed.

  I took a few steps inside.

  “Hello?”

  Nobody answered.

  I raised my voice. “Hello!”

  Finally steps could be heard from the other end of the premises. A young security guard stepped into view. “Hello?”

  She was wearing a uniform that once upon a time must have been black, but was now a faded gray from laundering and wear. She looked at me in astonishment. Perhaps I was the first person to stop by in a long time.

  Then she pulled herself together and held out her hand, indicating the sea of books. “I assume you want to take out books? Just help yourself.”

  “Don’t I need to register? Don’t you want my name?”

  She looked at me in surprise, as if that was something she hadn’t considered. Then she smiled. “It will be fine.”

  After that I was left in peace.

  For the first time in many years I allowed myself to be absorbed by books, by words. I could have spent my whole life here. Tao with the red scarf. The one who stood out. But that was another lifetime.

  I started in the section for the natural sciences. Something Wei-Wen had no tolerance for had made him ill, he’d gone into an allergic shock out there in the fields. Maybe a snakebite? I found an old book about snakes in China. It was big and heavy. I put it on the table in front of me and searched randomly through the text. I knew there had been cobras in the area previously, but they no longer existed, at least that was what we’d been told. They’d eaten frogs, which in turn had eaten insects—and when many of the insects were wiped out, the cobra’s basis for survival also disappeared. I turned the pages until I found a picture—a dark snake with flesh around its neck that opened up like a hood, with it’s characteristic chalky-colored pattern, alert, ready to attack. Could there still be some of them left out there after all?

  I read about the snakebite, about the symptoms. Numbness, blisters, pains, discomfort in the chest, fever, a sore throat, problems breathing. Not unlike Wei-Wen’s reactions.

  Necrosis, I read, an attack by a Chinese cobra will always lead to necrosis, the death of cells, not unlike gangrene, around the area of the bite.

  We hadn’t seen a bite. Wouldn’t we have noticed it?

  And even if we hadn’t noticed it, even if it was a snake, a cobra, that had attacked Wei-Wen, that didn’t explain the secrecy, the tent and the fence, his being taken away from us.

  I kept searching. If it wasn’t a bite, what could it be? As I turned the pages of medical encyclopedias and doctors’ manuals, the realization surfaced. Perhaps I had known it all along, but couldn’t bear to take it in, because it was too big, too important.

  It rang just once, and suddenly he was there.

  “Tao, what happened? We were cut off. Where were you?”

  I’d asked the guard if I might borrow the telephone; it was located in a separate office deep inside the library. The receiver was dusty, hadn’t been used in months.

  “It was nothing,” I said. I’d almost forgotten our conversation in the flat the night before. “It all turned out fine.”

  “But what had happened? You seemed so . . .” In his voice there was a nurturing tone he usually reserved for Wei-Wen.

  “I got lost. But I found my way again,” I said quickly. I had to give him an explanation so I could move on.

  “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

  His worrying. I couldn’t bear it. That wasn’t why I was calling. Yesterday I would have embraced it, now it was just in the way.

  “Forget about it,” I said. “I think I’ve found out what happened to Wei-Wen.”

  “What?”

  “Anaphylactic shock.”

  “Anaph . . .”

  “It means allergic reaction,” I said, and heard how slow and pedantic it sounded. I tried changing my tone of voice, not wanting to lecture him. “Wei-Wen went into an allergic shock. A reaction to something out there.”

  “Why . . . what makes you think so?” he asked.

  “Listen,” I said. Then I quickly read a text about symptoms and treatment. Rattled off terms like respiratory distress, a drop in blood pressure, coma, adrenaline.

  “It all fits.” I said. “That was exactly how he reacted.”

  “Did they give him adrenaline?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When they came, was he given adrenaline? You said that one is supposed to administer adrenaline if it’s life-threatening.”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see them give him anything.”

  “Me neither.”

  “But they may have done it in the ambulance.”

  He was silent, all I could hear was the soft sound of his breathing.

  “That sounds right,” he said finally.

  “It is right. It has to be,” I said.

  He didn’t answer. Thinking. I knew about what. The same thing that I’d been thinking since I woke up in the abandoned flat. Finally he came out with it.

  “But what? What was he allergic to?”

  “It could have been something he ate,” I said.

  “Yes . . . But what, then? The plums? Or something he found in the woods?”

  “I think it was something he found in the woods, but not something he ate.”

  He was quiet, perhaps he didn’t understand.

  “I don’t think it was food,” I continued. “I think it came from something outside.”

  “Yes?”

  “At first I thought it was a snakebite. But that doesn’t fit, not with the symptom.”

  He didn’t answer; the sound of his breathing from the receiver was more rapid now.

  “I don’t think it was a bite, but a sting.”

  WILLIAM

  Hertfordshire, 4 August 1852

  Honorable Dzierzon,

  I write to you as my peer, although quite possibly you do not know my name. All the same, the two of us have a great deal in common and therefore I viewed it as an absolute necessity to establish contact. I, the undersigned, have been following your work for some time and in particular your development of a new standard for beehives has attracted my attention. I cannot but express my boundless admiration for your emin
ent work, the evaluations you have made and finally, the hive in itself, as it is presented in Eichstädt Bienen-Zeitung.

  I, the undersigned, have also developed a hive, in part based on the same principles as yours, which I now, in all modesty, would like to share with you, in hopes that you will perhaps be able to devote some of your valuable time to sharing your thoughts about my work with me.

  Huber’s hive convinced me at an early stage that it should be possible to develop a hive that made the removal of boards possible, without having to kill the bees, yes, without even causing them distress. After reading his notes I also realized that we are capable of taming these fabulous creatures to a much greater extent than was previously believed. This understanding was quite essential for the continuation of my work.

  First I developed a hive that resembled your own, with an entrance from the side and removable top-bars. However, this design did not give me the solution to all of the challenges I perceived. As you have certainly experienced yourself, removal of the boards is not a simple operation on this model, but rather both time-consuming and cumbersome, and furthermore, it must be done, most regrettably, at the cost of both the bees and their offspring.

  But once in a great while one is struck by an epiphany that changes everything. For me, it occurred on a late-summer afternoon, while lying on the floor of the forest, in intellectual contemplation. I had at all times envisioned the hive as a house, with windows and doors, such as your hive. A home. But why not consider it completely differently? Because the bees are not to become like us, like humans—they are to be tamed by us, become our subjects. The way the sky now looked down upon me, and perhaps also God the Father, yes, I believe in truth He must have had a hand in this, on that summer afternoon, because this is how we shall look down upon the bees. Our contact with them shall of course take place from above.

  Everything changed when I turned all of it upside down, when I started thinking about creating an entrance to the hive from above. This led me to the idea that is also the reason behind my writing to you: my soon to be patented movable frames. The boards are attached to these so that they are not in contact with the hive itself, neither on the top, on the bottom nor on the sides. Through this design I am able to take out or remove the boards at my own discretion, without having to cut them down or hurt the bees. I am thus also free to move the bees over to other hives and have control over them to a far greater degree than previously.

  And how, you will certainly ask, does one prevent the bees from attaching the boards to the sides or to other boards with wax and propolis, or from building brace comb? Well, I shall give an account of this. Throughout a long period of calculations and experiments I arrived at the critical dimension. And that, my good friend, if you will permit me to address you as such, is nine. There must be a nine-millimeter space between the boards. There must be a nine-millimeter space between the boards and the side, between the boards and the bottom, between the boards and the top, neither more nor less.

  I hope and believe that “Savage’s Standard Hive” will soon be available all over Europe, yes, perhaps it will even reach beyond the borders of the continent. In the course of my work I have cultivated simplicity as a principle and the practical aspect has been essential, so that the hive can be used by everyone, from the most novice of beekeepers to the most experienced with hundreds of hives. But most importantly, I hope the hive might contribute to simplified observation conditions for naturalists like ourselves, so that we can continue to study in depth and make new discoveries related to this creature that is so infinitely fascinating, and not least, important for human beings.

  I have already applied for a patent for my invention, but as you are most certainly aware, the processing of these applications can take time. In the meantime I am eager to hear your response to my work. Yes, perhaps you will personally also attempt to develop a hive based on my principles. In the event you should be so inclined, I would feel more honored than you could imagine.

  With the greatest humility,

  William Atticus Savage

  The first carriage drove into the yard. My heart leapt, because it was beginning now. I had dressed in my best clothes, neatly ironed and laundered, and my face was freshly shaven, I had even brushed the dust off of my top hat. The guests were arriving and I was ready.

  The hives were lined up in two rows on the lowest part of the property. Yes, there were many of them now; Conolly had really had his hands full. The accumulated sound of thousands of bees was so loud that we could hear them from all the way in the house. My bees: tamed by me, my subjects, subjects which in truth also obeyed the smallest of my hand gestures as day after day, each and every one with its tiny offering contributed to filling the hive with shining, amber honey, and not least, did their part for the hive’s growth and development—for even more subjects.

  During the past few weeks I had sent out a number of invitations to my very first presentation of “Savage’s Standard Hive.” The invitations had been delivered to local farmers, but also sent to natural scientists from the capital. And to Rahm. I had heard from many, but not from him. But he would no doubt come. He had to come.

  Edmund, too, was ready. It was my impression that he had understood that this was serious. Yes, Thilda herself had apparently talked to him. Because it was still not too late, he was young, in that phase of life it was easy to be led astray, seduced by simple pleasures. Follow his passion, he’d called it, an argument I had the very greatest respect for, now it was just a matter of ensuring that he discovered a passion of distinction. My hope for him was that in his encounter with the research, in direct contact with nature, he would be inspired. That the sense of pride I would awaken in him, the pride over being a part of this family, carrying on our name, would lead him back to the straight and narrow path.

  Together the women of the family had moved chairs and benches down to the hives. The public would sit there while I gave my presentation. The girls and Thilda had chopped, roasted, boiled and sautéed away in the kitchen for several days. There would be refreshments, of course there would, although the very last of our money, yes, even the tuition money, had been spent. Because it was just a matter of a short-term investment, after this day everything would be resolved, I was convinced of that.

  Charlotte had been at my side the entire time. Since that day in the forest we had done everything together. Her serenity infected me, her enthusiasm became my own. This was also her day, but all the same there was a silent agreement that her white beekeeper’s suit was to remain in the clothes chest in the girls’ bedroom. She belonged among the other women, and appeared to have found her place there, with a serving dish in her hand and her cheeks blushing like tea roses. But once in a while she sent me a happy, excited smile, which told me she was looking forward to this with at least as much excitement as I was.

  The first carriage stopped in front of me. I prepared myself for a greeting. But then I saw who it was. Conolly, it was only Conolly.

  I stuck out my hand, but he didn’t take it, just pounded me on the shoulder.

  “Been looking forward to this all week,” he said and smiled. “Never been a part of something like this before.”

  I smiled back, tentatively indulgent, didn’t want to say that neither had I, but he jabbed me with his elbow.

  “You’re looking forward to it yourself. I can see it.”

  So we stood there, jiggling impatiently like two young boys on our first day of school.

  First the local farmers arrived—two who already kept bees and one who was thinking about starting up. They walked down to the hives while we waited.

  A little later two gentlemen whom I didn’t know arrived on horseback. Both were wearing top hats and riding clothes, and were covered with dust, as if they had traveled a long distance. They dismounted, came towards me and it was only then that I recognized my former fellow students, both with receding hairlines, potbellies and coarse pores on faces full of wrinkles. How old they had becom
e. No, not them, we, how old we had become.

  They greeted me, thanked me for the invitation, looked around and nodded in appreciation. They commented upon the types of opportunities found in living like this, at one with nature, instead of the existence they themselves had chosen, in the urban forest where the trees were buildings of brick, the fertile soil was cobblestone and all one saw when one looked up towards the sky were rooftops and chimney pots.

  The people streamed in; more farmers, some merely for curiosity’s sake, and even three zoologists from the capital, who came with the morning coach and were dropped off on the road below the property.

  But no Rahm.

  I hurried inside, checked the clock on the mantelpiece.

  I had hoped to start at one o’clock on the dot. Only then, when everyone was in their seat, would I walk down and take my position in front of them. And Edmund, my firstborn, would be there in the audience—he would see me standing in front of everyone.

  The time was now one thirty. People were becoming a little impatient. Some discretely fished their pocket watches out of their vests and glanced at them quickly. They had helped themselves to the food and drink that Thilda and the girls had brought around and were presumably quite full. It was hot; several people lifted their hats, took out handkerchiefs and wiped them over damp necks. My own hat was a scorching black ceiling that pressed down upon my head, and made it difficult to think. I regretted my outfit. More and more people looked towards the hives, and subsequently, at me, inquisitively. The conversation, and my own in particular, dried up. I was unable to stay focused on the person listening to me, as my gaze was again and again drawn towards the gate. Still no Rahm. Why didn’t he come?